Sierra Zulu Crew Members: Martin Gschlacht and Michaela Oppl

Let’s welcome two glorious members of Sierra Zulu’s workforce!

Martin Gschlacht
(Director of Photography)

Martin Gschlacht is an Austrian cinematographer and co-founder of the Viennese movie production company coop99. He graduated from Höhere Graphische Bundes-Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt Wien as a camera assistant and started working as a cameraman for music videos as well as short films and commercials. He continued his studies at the Filmakademie Wien, where he graduated 1996 in cinematography and production. Two years later he founded the Martin Gschlacht production company along with Valentin Hitz and Markus Wogrolly, which produced a couple of short films. In 1999 he co-founded the Viennese production company coop99 along with the directors Barbara Albert, Antonin Svoboda and Jessica Hausner. Gschlacht continues working on other cinematographic projects and also has been teaching at the Viennese film college since 2008. Two of the movies he has worked on as a cinematographer were featured in the contest program of the international film festival of Venice: Shirin Neshat’s Women Without Men and Jessica Hausner’s Lourdes.
Gschlacht founded the Academy of Austrian Film along with other Austrian creators. He is now a member of the board of the same.

Michaela Oppl
(Make-Up and SFX-Make-Up)

Michaela Oppl is a make-up artist and a specialist for SFX make-up and has worked on such diverse film productions as Haneke’s The Piano Teacher, Glawogger’s Slumming, Riahi’s For a Moment Freedom, Murnberger’s Der Knochenmann and Carreras’ Flores negras. TV productions: Vier Frauen und ein Todesfall and Dorfers Donnerstalk.
In 2009 she received the award for best make-up in Flores negras from the Málaga Spanish Film Festival.

Sierra Zulu: Steve Tolin’s New Creature Designs

Our creature effects maestro Steve Tolin sent pages and pages of impressive new designs. He will soon start with the creation of 3D models. And we are not talking about computer graphics here… we are talking about real models!

All is — of course — top secret, továrišči! We just want to tease you with meaningless (yet fancy!) details.

Want to learn more about Steve Tolin? Check out our post from September 2011.

Sierra Zulu presents: Steve Tolin

Today I visited SFX luminary Steve Tolin in his studio in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Steve is our creature effects specialist, an overall great chap, and I think he just offers what we need for Sierra Zulu.

(Above: Steve, working on a small action figure in his basement creature shop.)

What’s Steve’s background?
Steve is the award winning owner and operator of Tolin FX, an American special effects design and fabrication studio. Tolin FX focuses on the design and fabrication of Special Effects Make-up, Special FX Props, Radio Controlled, Cable Driven, and Hand Operated Puppets, and Computer Visual Effects. From conceptualization to execution, Steve and Tolin FX provide cost effective, creative solutions to complex and specialized problems. And that’s exactly what we need in Soviet Unterzoegersdorf: cost-effectiveness.
Steve has also made his film production debut as a member of Clear Conscience Pictures, creating a feature length science fiction adventure entitled, It Came from Yesterday.
To learn more about Steve Tolin and Tolin FX and to see some of their work, please visit http://www.tolinfx.com. To find out more about It Came from Yesterday and Clear Conscience Pictures, please see http://http://www.itcamefromyesterday.com/.

Creature effects? WTF?
Yes. But we are not telling you anything more. Period.